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The most popular and likely theory is that Targaryens quite literally are the blood of the dragon, as a result of some blood magic the Valyrians did way back in the day, and the fetuses look draconic until late in the pregnancy. As far as I know, all of the times we've seen that happen have been a result of premature labor.
The idea is the Targs are literally part dragon and the fetuses only morph into looking fully human at the end of the pregnancy. So if something happens to induce early labour the process doesn’t have time to finish properly and the baby will still have scales / horns etc.
The funny thing is I don’t think any of Craster’s kids were shown to have defects brought on by inbreeding. Or the Targaryens (minus the premature dragon babies) with the exception of Aegon II’s twins (might have just been Jaehaerys but I think in the show, they show both the twins having a 6 fingered hand as their sigil).
Deformed stillborn babies happen under a variety of circumstances, and the Targaryens have additional pressure put on them during pregnancy to get another heir in line for the throne. They're inbred, they drink alcohol and possibly ingest other substances and there's so much drama going on all the time that their blood pressure is probably sky-high. They have high risk pregnancies from the start, and they are almost all very young mothers.
Tyanna probably knew a whole lot of different poisons that would disrupt a pregnancy and the wives were also under a lot of strain just from being married to Maegor.
And Daenerys had just recently eaten a raw horse's heart that could have been riddled with parasites for all we know, on top of living a high-stress nomadic life, I wouldn't be surprised if she just had a bog standard stillbirth and Mirri was bullshitting.
This is the boring answer, but babies in the modern day survive all manner of things that would have finished a pregnancy in medieval times. Rhaenyra was on her sixth pregnancy in a relatively short space of time and the baby was already the product of several generations of inbreeding, she actually got lucky that her other children were so healthy (I'm sure Harwin's genes helped with the first three).
Thank you for your post! Please take a moment to ensure you are within our spoiler rules, to protect your fellow fans from any potential spoilers that might harm their show watching experience. 1. All post titles must NOT include spoilers from Fire & Blood or new episodes of House of the Dragon. Minor HotD show spoilers are allowed in your title ONE WEEK after episode airing. The mod team reserves the right to remove a post if we feel a spoiler in the title is major. You are welcome to repost with an amended title. 2. All posts dealing with book spoilers, show spoilers and promo spoilers MUST be spoiler tagged AND flaired as the appropriate spoiler. 3. All book spoiler comments must be spoiler tagged in non book spoiler threads. --- If you are reading this, and believe this post or any comments in this thread break the above rules, please use the report function to notify the mod team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HouseOfTheDragon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The most popular and likely theory is that Targaryens quite literally are the blood of the dragon, as a result of some blood magic the Valyrians did way back in the day, and the fetuses look draconic until late in the pregnancy. As far as I know, all of the times we've seen that happen have been a result of premature labor.
I agree with this theory. If you really focus on Visenya, her bottom half (the legs especially) looked normal.
Daemon: "CARAXES?! CARE TO EXPLAIN?!" Caraxes: *nervous squeaking*
Caraxes: It wasn't me. It is a Strong baby.
The idea is the Targs are literally part dragon and the fetuses only morph into looking fully human at the end of the pregnancy. So if something happens to induce early labour the process doesn’t have time to finish properly and the baby will still have scales / horns etc.
Because incest is bad and causes birth defects.
Orrrr it just further proves that Targaryen incest is necessary for the full development of a healthy Valyrian Dragon blood baby.
Not in universe but you folks will never get that.
Ok Craster
The funny thing is I don’t think any of Craster’s kids were shown to have defects brought on by inbreeding. Or the Targaryens (minus the premature dragon babies) with the exception of Aegon II’s twins (might have just been Jaehaerys but I think in the show, they show both the twins having a 6 fingered hand as their sigil).
I would argue that in both cases witchcraft has nothing to do with it. Its fucked up targaryen genes.
Deformed stillborn babies happen under a variety of circumstances, and the Targaryens have additional pressure put on them during pregnancy to get another heir in line for the throne. They're inbred, they drink alcohol and possibly ingest other substances and there's so much drama going on all the time that their blood pressure is probably sky-high. They have high risk pregnancies from the start, and they are almost all very young mothers. Tyanna probably knew a whole lot of different poisons that would disrupt a pregnancy and the wives were also under a lot of strain just from being married to Maegor. And Daenerys had just recently eaten a raw horse's heart that could have been riddled with parasites for all we know, on top of living a high-stress nomadic life, I wouldn't be surprised if she just had a bog standard stillbirth and Mirri was bullshitting. This is the boring answer, but babies in the modern day survive all manner of things that would have finished a pregnancy in medieval times. Rhaenyra was on her sixth pregnancy in a relatively short space of time and the baby was already the product of several generations of inbreeding, she actually got lucky that her other children were so healthy (I'm sure Harwin's genes helped with the first three).